A beacon of hope and a glimmer of faith in a culture of chaos.

06/14/2014

The Friday the 13th Spooktacular Full Moon

Full Moon at 100% of full

Friday, June 13, 2014

Photography by Curtis Beaird

Article by Norma Beaird

Information from Farmer's Almanac and National Geographic

During the month of June 2014, the full moon occurs on June 12 and 13. On Thursday, June 12, we experienced overwhelming humidity, cloud cover and thunderstorms in rural Georgia. On Friday, June 13th, it began to rain in the late afternoon. After viewing the skies once again, watching the extreme humidity settle over Georgia while the clouds gathered in misty formation, we assumed that we wouldn't be photographing the June full moon.

Then, in dramatic fashion at 10:46 p.m. EST in the flat countryside, between the tall Georgia pines, the clouds began to part and Curtis captured a full moon that would make any Halloween fan proud.

Full Strawberry Moon – June This name was universal to every Algonquin tribe. However, in Europe they called it the Rose Moon. Also because the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries comes each year during the month of June . . . so the full Moon that occurs during that month was christened for the strawberry!

With the sun's path across the sky at its highest during this month of the summer solstice, the moon is at its lowest, which keeps the lunar orb close to the horizon and makes it appear more amber than other full moons this year.

The ambercolors are due to the scattering of longer wavelengths of light by dust and pollution in our atmosphere. "It is a similar phenomenon as seen at sunset, when sunlight is scattered towards the red end of the spectrum, making the sun's disk appear orange-red to the naked-eye," says astronomer Raminder Singh Samra of the H. R. MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver, Canada.